tomwambsgirl:

dudes will be like yeah that’s a fantastic episode of the show one of my favorites in fact. i can’t watch it straight all the way through because the mental distress it causes me is too acute

aurora-nova-fic:

thoughts-i-have-had-in-pass-blog:

aurora-nova-fic:

I favor the interpretation that Julian’s subpar social skills - which do improve over the series - are the natural result of his parents denying him opportunities to develop interpersonal acuity. For some personal background, I was homeschooled for first, second, and third grade. It took me twenty years to mostly catch up on social skills. (True story: the first time Mr. Nova asked me on a date, he asked, “Would you like to get coffee?” To which I replied, in all seriousness, “I don’t drink coffee.”) What I’m saying is, I can see how Julian would be so out of his league socially because I’ve been there. If you add in that his parents moved around a lot and probably wanted to keep people from getting to close so they didn’t suspect, you can very easily have young Julian missing out on critical social development.

What I like about this, too, is that it gives another layer to his resentment of his parents. He wants so desperately to be liked but everything he does to try to make friends drives most people (except Garak) away because he doesn’t know. Because he’s doing what he should’ve learned didn’t work in elementary school, except his parents deprived him of that opportunity, and he’s trying to figure it out twenty years too late, so he’s angry that his parents cared about what he could accomplish and not other crucial skills so he could be happy.

I hate the episode Dr. Bashir I Presume because all the key elements were right there for Julian’s complicated backstory of theoretically growing up sheltered and in paradise except it turns out hell can be both personal and very localised, but instead they went with ‘big sacrifice saves the relationship’. 

At the end of the episode Julian’s parents should have abandoned him while claiming that he abandoned them first by going to live on DS9. Their very presence should have turned him back into Season 1 Julian as he stumbles and fumbles and tries oh so hard to show how smart he is because it’s the only thing they value and he can’t drop the habit of trying to please them because it’s been a lifetime even though he hates it. He should have told white lie after white lie about how he NEVER uses the holosuites for ‘playing like a child’ and how he DEFINITELY spends all his time working on his next big research project that’s going to TOTALLY win him the Carrington award instead of just getting him nominated, and of course it’s fine they didn’t call when that happened, of course he knows they totally would have called if he actually won, what was it Father always says? Nominees are just losers they make public? True, Father, very true, sorry for disappointing you.

And then when the truth comes out - that’s he’s been making inappropriate friends (Garak the Cardassian, Miles the Enlisted Man, Dax the (Seriously Jules? A Worm?) - and playing (the horror) at being a spy in the holosuites instead of being productive, that he visited Risa, on purpose, RISA, his parents let slip that they didn’t MAKE him to be that way. Not raise him, make him, and they don’t realise that they are being overheard as they berate him and he argues back because he’s tired of it and he actually likes his life and his friends, and that’s how Dr. Zimmerman overhears and reports it to Starfleet. 

Julian’s parents should have left him to deal with the consequences alone and he should have been allowed to stay in Starfleet because Sisko et al backed him up and argued against a frankly insanely unjust law that bars him from doing things not because of who he is but because of what he is (human rights movement, do I hear a good analogy brewing?).

It probably would have taken two episodes to tell the whole story but frankly it should have. The whole genetically enhanced plot is a fucking huge twist in Julian’s tale and it deserved more than it got.

Rant over, sorry for hijacking but I’ve typed it all now so I may as well hit the button.

Hijack away! I very much dislike the ‘big sacrifice saves the relationship’ angle as well. In fact I’ve posted about it before. =) I think “Prodigal Daughter” was a much better look at a dysfunctional parental relationship, and at least in that one we get a line from Julian which suggests that everything with his parents was not in fact fine.

You can certainly read Richard going to prison as something he did for himself rather than Julian. One, he gets to be the martyr in his own mind. Two, he gets the continuing satisfaction of knowing Julian is still accomplishing great deeds.

Honestly, I’d have preferred a two-episode arc where they challenged the legal premise of punishing people for decisions which were made by their parents, or some such. The end of the episode was hand-wavy and unsatisfying, probably because Siddig asked the writers to change the original ending where only Miles knew.

And I love your ideas about Julian lying and reverting to please his parents, even if it’s just around them. This idea really puts the holosuites in perspective - he’s having fun because his parents never let him.

irresistible-revolution:

cordrazine-official:

as someone else recently said, everything about “doctor bashir, i presume?” is painful but one of the worst scenes to me (i’ll start crying every time - if i’m not yet crying by then) is what ben does after julian’s father has agreed to his prison sentence. julian is standing there, stunned, and ben touches his arm ever so lightly and says “take your time”. and then he leaves. he leaves his own office through one of the side doors to give julian and his parents some privacy. how many times over the course of the show does ben leave his own office to someone else? and specifically to give them some space?

#and it’s an interaction that seems so self-evident to both of them#like yes julian is shocked but ben’s gesture and his words don’t come as a surprise to him

So @stopthatbluecat and I have been discussing her Siskoshir au. I had an idea that she isn’t going to use, so I’m writing this post. It’s too fun not to share!

Julian and Ben are dating. But then, the Changeling comes, and the first thing he does is break up with Ben. This creates distance for the Changeling to hide, but Ben still has this nagging feeling that something isn’t quite right. He can’t quite pin it down.

Then Garak gets the signal from Tain, and something clicks for Ben. He suddenly is nearly sure Julian is a Changeling. Little things start to make so much sense. He doesn’t want to spook the Changeling until he knows the real Julian is safe. He tells Dax and Kira to keep an eye on “Julian” while he, not Worf, goes with Garak to the Gamma Quadrant.

(Oh also Julian is dating Ben but he still has feelings for Garak which Ben knows about and is fine with. Garak doesn’t know about Julian’s feelings but he of course harbors feelings for Julian)

Ben and Garak still fly into that nebula and get captured. Garak has his whole moment with Tain. Then, Julian walks in, and Ben has to hold himself very still not to rush up and hold him. Julian, for his part, isn’t quite sure which one of them he is happier to see. But he falls into Ben’s arms once the Jem'Hadar leave the room. (Tain probably says some homophobic shit bc he’s Tain, but he dies soon so fuck him)

Julian watches over Garak during his shifts in the wall. But Ben can’t tolerate fighting the Jem'Hadar as well as Worf could. So Julian makes a decision. He volunteers himself to fight. At first no one wants to let him, because he looks like this waif of a man, but then they figure he will be fun for an appetizer. But! Obv it turns out Julian is an augment and he can take much more of a beating, and dish it out, than anyone expected. And that is how Ben, Garak, and Martok find out Julian’s secret.

Ben ends up being the one keeping an eye on Garak while he’s in the wall and Julian is fighting. Julian is still there when Tain dies tho. I wouldn’t take that away from them. But this way Ben and Garak develop a bond and a higher respect for one another. Also Garak’s feelings for Julian become more apparent in his reactions to Julian’s injuries.

I think they don’t all form a happy poly triangle right away but they might make the first steps toward such a thing. Julian realizes that Garak has feelings for him which is something he has to reconcile along with the fact that Ben was the only one to suspect the Changeling wasn’t him.

They all decide not to tell Julian’s secret. When his parents arrive, Julian gets much more support and understanding from Ben and Garak. They do their best to keep Richard and Amsha contained, but the secret still gets out. Events play out mostly as they do in the show, but Julian is less alone through the whole mess. And he is never expected to forgive or reconcile with his parents.

And that is how I would do Purgatory’s Shadow/Inferno’s Light and Doctor Bashir, I Presume differently assuming Julian and Sisko were dating.

irresistible-revolution:

my late night thots no one asked for are that richard and amsha bashir truly loved julian and did what they did out of a deeply fearful, anxious love born from living in a technotopia where people who get to do the coolest things have to be super smart and brainy in a very narrowly defined way. furthermore the fact that they wanted to enhance his genes speaks to a deep sense of shame and self-hate within both of them (and we can speculate how this shows up but, for one thing, it’s clear there’s a class difference between amsha and richard and that richard is constantly trying to measure up to his perceived lack and hurting people in the process) that deserves more nuancing in fic, especially when we consider how the “eugenics wars” were concentrated in the global south and therefore most likely impacted the regions richard and amsha hailed from. 

and finally, if we factor in richard’s inferiority complex about his class and race and masculinity with amsha’s pained grace and regretful acquiescence we can see why julian dons a mantle of snobbery and hauteur in order to project self-assuredness (like richard) while keenly aware that he’s wrong/imperfect/guilty (like amsha), and how all of that is also tangled up with the shame he feels about not being good enough without his augmentations, while also resenting the fact that his parents both gifted and cursed him with these talents.

tldr; the bashir family story is often contextualized through ableism and parental homo/transphobia but, imho, only fully makes sense with an intersecting racial and class framework. ableism and homophobia can’t be decoupled from race (the history of european race science is the easiest example of how race was long used as a shorthand for intellectual deficiency) and, in the case of these three characters, what we see unfold onscreen is just as much a story of immigrant/model minority transgenerational trauma as it is a story of how ableism and homophobia damages parent/child relationships. richard and amsha are also, in their own way, responding to ableism, is what i’m suggesting. and their love for julian is always shot through with their own self-loathing and anxieties around failing societal expectations. 

tailoring-hearts:

protectspock:

protectspock:

Also Julian’s “you never gave me a chance” fucking GUTS me because like!!! He’s right!!! Learning disabilities and learning delays in a 6 year-old don’t fucking predict what that child will grow up to be or do. And he’s a doctor so he knows that. And what do you want to bet that it haunts him? Not knowing which of his abilities are the result of his artificially manipulated IQ and what could have grown there naturally, over time?

@appleciders

I think about this all the time. Sometimes the kids who struggle most can end up being the most intelligent. But even if not there’s absolutely no reason Julian’s parents should’ve resorted to having him modified to how they think he should be. It’s cruel and unfair. And honestly it still gets on my nerves that they made Julian kind of forgive his parents. You don’t have to forgive someone who has hurt you. And yes it shows just how truly compassionate Julian is that he was willing to attempt forgiving his parents. But still.

stopthatbluecat:

He deserves to be loved and protected…